This invention relates to an oxygen absorbent, and particularly relates to an oxygen absorbent comprising a dithionite and a compound having water of crystallization or water of hydration.
In order to preserve foodstuffs, such as vegetables, fishes, shellfishes, meats, processed foodstuffs, such as potato chips, cakes, peanuts, etc., and so on, it is necessary to prevent the foodstuffs' from getting moldy and from putrefying. Prior art methods have used freezer storage, CA cold storage, vacuum packaging and replacing the gas present in the inner part of packaging by an inert gas for preventing foodstuffs from getting moldy and putrefying. Additives, such as antioxidant, have been used for preserving foodstuffs. Recently, governments have started to regulate the use of additives for food, since it is realized that some additives are injurious to humans. The freezer storage method requires large-scale apparatus and complicated operation, so the freezer storage method is costly.
Molds or eumycetes, bacterias and higher organisms such as insects tend to disturb preservation of foodstuffs. These mold eumycetes, bacterias and insects live and grow in the presence of oxygen and cause putrefaction and change in quality of foodstuffs.
Therefore, if oxygen can be selectively removed from the atmosphere in which the foodstuffs is packed, the problem of putrefaction and change in quality of foodstuffs can be overcome, and it will become possible to preserve foodstuffs for a long time.
It was known in the prior art that a dithionite reacts with oxygen in the presence of water to form a sulfate and sulfurous acid gas. By utilizing this property of dithionite a disoxidant or an oxygen absorbent comprising a dithionite, an alkaline material and activated carbon was known in the prior art (Japanese Pat. No. 686,561). The known disoxidant is prepared by mixing each component in a perfectly dry state. A small amount of water is added to the resulting mixture at the time of using the disoxidant. The known disoxidant has the following shortcomings:
(1) It is necessary to use a large amount of activated carbon in the disoxidant in order to prevent the disoxidant from hardening.
(2) Since, in the order of addition, water is the last component to be added to the composition, water is not uniformly distributed throughout the composition.
In general, activated carbon has deodorizing action, so it was said that the use of activated carbon for removing sulfurous acid gas as well as a gas generated from a dithionite is preferred. In this case, the amount of activated carbon present in the oxygen absorbent comprising dithionite, an alkaline material and activated carbon is as high as 50% by weight per 100 parts of the alkaline material. The above amount of activated carbon exceeds the amount of activated carbon required for deodorizing. Too great an amount of an oxygen absorbent containing excess activated carbon is required for exhibiting a desired oxygen-absorbing ability. In addition, since uneven distribution of water in the absorbent results in causing different rates of absorbing oxygen, an oxygen absorbent having a desired rate of absorbing oxygen can not be obtained. When a relatively large amount of water is added to the oxygen absorbent, water is likely to be uniformly distributed. But since the oxygen-absorbing rate of the oxygen absorbent containing a large amount of water becomes large, some of the dithionite reacts with oxygen in air before the use of the absorbent, and therefore, addition of a large amount of water results in a considerable amount of the dithionite. When the oxygen-absorbing rate is large, a rapid rise in temperature occurs through exothermic reaction. Such rise in temperature may be dangerous. In order to uniformly distribute water throughout the absorbent a process for adding water-containing sawdust to the absorbent has been proposed in place of direct addition of water thereto, but the process is not practical.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,825,651 proposes a process for preparing an oxygen absorbent comprising mixing a finely divided sulfite and a finely divided metal salt and compression-pelletizing the mixture in order to increase the rate of the oxidation of sulfite. However it was found that the rate of oxidation of the sulfite in the oxygen absorbent was not sufficient, and the absorbent has a low oxygen-absorbing rate.